I could live in the world just like a stranger

I could tell you the truth or a lie

I could tell you that people are good in the end

But why, why would I?

Angels will cry when it's raining

Tears that are no longer clean

What do you mean?

What do you mean, it's all gone?

I've waited here so long

Bye to the people

They, they do nothing

Now that you're missing something

You wanna leave the world with me

You wanna leave

~Veena~

In the dead of night, in spite of the electric lights, London seems an alien city. Foreign, cold and heartless.

In the quiet streets, once the pubs are closed and are at a distance from the 24-hour convenience stores, the sodium gleam of the street lamps or the flickering strip lights from a sleepy minicab stand offer little consolation. There are alleys and street corners and shop entrances where the darkness appears to collect in a solid mass; secluded squares where night makes a weird sound of its own stillness. There are buildings, monuments and statues that at a distance, and in the absence of people, pulsate mysteriously in the light. Interrupted in their attempts to pillage scraps from upended bins, there are glimpses of foxes that slope and trot across the road.

And from time to time, there are the faintly sinister silhouettes of other solitary individuals, as threatened by your presence as you are by theirs. Like you are an alien, an unknown, just another stranger.

It is seems easy to feel disoriented in the city at the dead of night, dreamily or desperately tired. For in the darkness, perhaps in familiar or routine places, everything acquires a subtly different form or volume, darker and sinister than its daylight counterpart.

Yet, I prefer it.

It is not quite the same at night. At 2 am, in the empty streets, no longer fighting against the traffic of cars and commuters, I can find time for my own solitary thoughts away from social etiquette and judging people. I can begin to recall the real earth, in the abstracted, monochromatic conditions of the night time, the pure, innocent nature of the world.

But I can also see there is misery in these streets, soaked into the sidewalk cracks and into the graphitized walls. It is in the stores that were once loaded with designer goods and now house everything for a dollar. It is in the back alleys where the few restaurants that persist in trading have their garbage searched several times a day, and not just by the cats. It is etched in every gaunt and dejected face that has given up on life getting any better than mean survival on mean streets; and I know those faces become more ubiquitous with each passing year.

Some sleep in the streets rather than take the bed bugs in the shelters, some cling to their holy books as their last hope for something better; not in this life, but after they pass of pneumonia or some highly treatable infection. They have become garbage, damaged bodies and damaged minds, unsure of the truth or the lies that the world brings. Each one of them holds a story that could probably snap your heart in two.

That said, maybe I should consider myself lucky. A roof over my head, hot meals every day and chance of education. But why when I can't be sure if there is any good left in this world.

With every stride I take on the pavement, my mind becomes clearer, more resolute, as if the growing physical distance between me and society had now become an emotional chasm. I am a girl with power in her hands, no one in my way to stop me.

Finally, here I am.

Like a woman's wispy dress that has slipped off its hanger, the city in front of me falls in fantastic folds, not held up by anything, a iridescence limply suspended in the black air. Beyond the desert of the square across which a car speeds now and then with a new metropolitan trumpeting, the skyscrapers drawl out past the skyline, an endless paradise, an endless hell.

And then I look up and stare at the stars. I would call it beautiful, but even that wouldn't do it justice. It's something you can't describe or tell anyone about to share the experience, not even something to capture in a photo. You can only know by experience, only seeing them through your eyes will you be able to see the beauty.

The moon under siege by stars seems to lighten the night. bringing forth stars that shone and hung in the blackness. The never ending blackness consumes everything. Except the stars which stood out like pebbles in front of a storm. It seems like warfare as the darkness controls the sky yet the stars controls the gleaming spots of where they originated. The war continues across the constellations. They illuminate the darkness and make my fears crumble to dust beneath my feet. The words, the lies, the hatred and the failures, they now lingered at a distance. A white crescent shaped scar flickers on my wrist and I am reminded that wounds would eventually heal into scars, some of the permanent, some of them not.

Sometimes I wondered if stars are just shiny silvery-blue dots in the sky, why are they so pretty? What makes it different than dots of light shining through little holes on a black paper? I'd never figure it out. Maybe it's the reality of it. The mystery.

And that's why I love it.

*****

AN: Hehe, a little surprise here. I don't think I will really update this often or anything but I hope you enjoy this (especially as the recent update of Chronophobia was TINY!) Of course, I have to give ALL of the creds to my friend I_Need_Fried_Chicken who created the original idea and helped to write this :))

Hanshi (and Tife?) xx